AUSTRALIA
7 News
Rebekah Ison – AAP on February 14, 2017
The Vatican has directed Catholic seminaries to assess aspiring priests and brothers for homosexuality but not for an attraction to children, a royal commission has heard.
Sister Lydia Allen, who conducts assessments at a Homebush seminary in Sydney, said she didn’t think there needed to be a direction to test those who wanted to enter the priesthood or a religious order for sexual tendencies towards children because it was just “obvious” it should be done.
“They do not have, as far as I’m aware, anything that says, you must assess that,” the nun, who also has a Phd in psychology, told the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney on Tuesday.
“I would think it’s an unspoken rule. I don’t think it needs to be stated explicitly, because it’s so obvious.”
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